EPISODE 189 — Apes Will Fight If We Must

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Love the episode! But I have to agree with some of the other forum posts, Doug the Angry Trumpet Guy is completely impossible to listen to. Besser has to know that he is crazy and totally full of shit, right? Between the inane comments about psychology and the universe, completely getting basic facts wrong (like the population of the US during the Truman administration and today), constantly bringing up minutiae about his life and how long he's lived in Manhattan, and INCESSANTLY saying things like "What you have to know about that is..." or "The interesting thing about that is..."

I agree with you here and (I suspect like yourself) I don't have a strong dislike or hate of Doug - he's just quite tiring. A little bit like an elderly relative who you have to indulge out of politeness. After all, not every point needs to be illustrated with an example and after a while you could here the guys quietly laughing when Doug began another story. I do lose patience when he starts talking about levitating whilst meditating. I imagine one can feel or visualise that you are floating...and that's it.

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I don't think so cos in the clip he was saying Groundlings didn't get it right either. Matt said it was a guy who ran a place 'across the street'. I don't think it's literally there but I googled improv classes taking place around UCB Franklin and the only guess I have is Keith Saltojanes of 'Improv LA', but no idea if it's him and me finger pointing like this does no one any good. But I admit to being weirdly fixated on this now

I just want to hear the guy in his own words.

GZ

Yeah, speculation doesn't really do anybody any good. I looked up that guy and it's not him, since Matt said the guy in question had been in the improv scene even longer than he has

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I just don't get how Doug's whole claim to fame is "getting on a tasteless level" and yelling at that trumpet guy and then he tells Matt to just keep his mouth shut and rise above it through TM or something similar. Sounded like a sales pitch. I love listening to Doug. Talking to weirdo strangers is my past time, but I wish Matt would have said something about his trumpet outburst and how it went against what he was saying. I'm sure if Matt would have brought that point up, it would have been some scripted holier than thou stuff that was most of Doug's speech but it would have been worth a shot.

Also, that person blocking Doug in the elevator story sounds like he left out a huge chunk of the story. It's really rare that someone who can hold down an apartment is that crazy to do that for no reason.

Matt, just fucking yell at him. You know that's what you want and that's UCB performers and fans want. I'll volunteer to be I4H's spirit animal and give you all the answers since I nailed this one. Call me.

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I agree with you here and (I suspect like yourself) I don't have a strong dislike or hate of Doug - he's just quite tiring. A little bit like an elderly relative who you have to indulge out of politeness. After all, not every point needs to be illustrated with an example and after a while you could here the guys quietly laughing when Doug began another story. I do lose patience when he starts talking about levitating whilst meditating. I imagine one can feel or visualise that you are floating...and that's it.

GZ

Yeah, I get what you mean. And I don't have any hatred or malice toward the guy, I just have a very low threshold for his longwinded style of speaking. Admittedly I didn't hear the guys laughing in the background because I could not listen that long, I just got so frustrated. And admittedly (again) it would be in bad form for Besser and the guests to bad mouth him on the show right after he was on would be in bad form

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I'll admit I don't know much about long form improv. Basically this podcast is all I know of it so maybe I have no right to comment; however, I assume the live shows are similar to what goes on here. Given the popularity of UCB, it seems to me this guy saying "I don't get it. I don't understand it." is the equivalent of the elementary class where teacher clearly explains the lesson and asks if anyone has any questions and the little shit that's been blowing spit balls all day raises his hand and the whole class groans as the teacher explains the whole thing over again.

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Now that it's out there, I'm not surprised it's a co-founder of the Annoyance -- Matt has had to defend his improv from them before. (EDIT: Man, watching his improv, he IS a very selfish performer. He just stomps all over anyone else on stage. And his "philosophy" just sounds like meaningless hippie-dippie crap.)

I'm sorry to see that Doug's angry trumpet video has become a beacon for a bunch of racist, anti-semetic, Stormfront comments on YouTube. I'm guessing those communities are targeting it.

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Love the episode! But I have to agree with some of the other forum posts, Doug the Angry Trumpet Guy is completely impossible to listen to. Besser has to know that he is crazy and totally full of shit, right?

No I doubt besser gets any of that. I'm sure meta humor and irony go right over the father of modern improvs head.